To: tejek who wrote (790468 ) 6/17/2014 7:42:46 PM From: combjelly 2 RecommendationsRecommended By bentway tejek
Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1577931 Khattala attacked embassy because of video... Boom. There goes the conspiracy. CAIRO — Ahmed Abu Khattala was always open about his animosity toward the United States, and even about his conviction that Muslims and Christians were locked in an intractable religious war. “There is always hostility between the religions,” he said in an interview. “That is the nature of religions.” During the assault on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi , Libya, on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, Mr. Abu Khattala was a flamboyant presence. Witnesses saw him directing the swarming attackers who ultimately killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Even after the attack, he offered only vague and contradictory denials that he had played a role, while apparently enjoying the notoriety it brought him . He sat for repeated interviews with Western journalists and even invited a correspondent for tea in the modest home where he lived openly, with his mother, in the Benghazi neighborhood of el-Leithi. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage U.S. Captures Top Suspect in Benghazi Siege, Pentagon SaysJUNE 17, 2014 But for all his brazenness, Mr. Abu Khattala also holds many tantalizing secrets for the Americans investigating and debating the attack. Photo Ahmed Abu Khattala Credit Facebook His apprehension by United States military commandos and law enforcement agents may finally begin to address some of the persistent questions about who carried out the attack and why. Those questions have spawned a small industry of conspiracy theories, political scandals, talk radio broadcasts, and a continuing congressional investigation. Despite extensive speculation about the role of Al Qaeda in directing the attack in Libya, Mr. Abu Khattala is a local Islamist militant, with no known connections to international terrorist groups, according to American officials briefed on the criminal investigation and intelligence reporting, as well as other Benghazi Islamists who know him. In interviews, Mr. Abu Khattala professed his admiration for Osama bin Laden and blamed American foreign policy for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But he remained a distant admirer, having spent most of his adult life jailed for his extremism under Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. During the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi, Mr. Abu Khattala formed his own militia, which played a small role in the NATO-backed uprising. But within a few months, he had pulled his small band back from the front, deeming most of his fellow Islamists insufficiently committed to establishing a puritanical theocracy and too close to the West. After Colonel Qaddafi fell, Mr. Abu Khattala was one of the disgruntled veterans of the uprising who kept Benghazi on edge. Though he had friends among the militia leaders of the city who were close to American and British diplomats who took residence in the city, he kept his distance from foreign diplomats and rallied his own supporters to protest what he viewed as foreign interference in Libya’s affairs. What he did in the period just before the attack has remained unclear. But Mr. Abu Khattala told other Libyans in private conversations during the night of the attack that he was moved to attack the diplomatic mission to take revenge for an insult to Islam in an American-made online video. Continue reading the main story An earlier demonstration venting anger over the video outside the American Embassy in Cairo had culminated in a breach of its walls, and it dominated Arab news coverage. Mr. Abu Khattala told both fellow Islamist fighters and others that the attack in Benghazi was retaliation for the same insulting video, according to people who heard him.